Dear Chris,

Thanks for an elegant and reflective post. You've identified a key
factor that we probably don't consider often enough. This factor is
similarities among kinds of processes. From similarities, we also
identify the factors that differentiate processes. In this case, the
differentiating factors are context and purpose.

When I was getting my MA -- in education and psychology -- I used to
drop by once or twice a week to chat with one of my thesis advisors. He
introduced me to Kierkegaard's work. I'd read, I'd visit him for a chat,
and we'd reflect together on "associations, themes and narratives." They
were "inherently shareable" and we did "make a collaborative ... [but
not material or visual] ... interpretation that can be negotiated and
re-negotiated by drawing on the variations of interpretation of a
collaborative theme or association." Like you, I found "that the ability
to leverage the inherent conflict of interpretation, in a very positive
sense, of an association or theme [lay at the heart of the process] both
from an individual and a collaborative process."

Even though I've had to bracket off issues in your note to make it
clear this wasn't a design process, it was a reflective, collaborative
process, and it helped to establish meanings that fed the creative
process behind my thesis. In the context of professional design or
professional design education, we set out to create toward a goal, to
meet needs, solve problems, or to create something new. Despite the
differences in context, the reflective and interpretive process has
common aspects in music, design, or in the thinking that leads to a
thesis.

In this sense, understanding process has a lot to teach us. This is a
quick, reflective response to your note. You stated the theme, and it
got me reflecting, associating, and remembering a very enjoyable year
spent with one great thinker reading and reflecting on the work of
another great thinker. Kierkegaard used to say that the challenge of
life is that we must live life forward, while we must understand life
reflecting and looking backward. Perhaps the challenge of design is that
we reflect and look forward to shape the life into which we will live.

Warm wishes,

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3
9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design


Chris Heape wrote:

--snip--

There is a wonderful example by Donald Schön in his Educating the
Reflective Practitioner (1987 pp.179-181) that involves a music teacher
with a student learning to play the violin. The teacher asks one
particular student to identify the character of the music she is
playing. The student identifies the qualities of the three themes as
lively, stormy and reflective. The teacher continues by asking the
student to identify from her own theme descriptions how she could change
her playing to achieve a more precise expression of those themes. 

I have often used this example to help students and design educators to
understand what I am asking them to do from a design perspective, in
particular in a co-design process to make the point that visual
associations, themes and narratives are inherently shareable even though
those involved can't necessarily see the same image. They can however
make a collaborative, material or visual interpretation that can be
negotiated and re-nogiated by drawing on the variations of
interpretation of a collaborative theme or association. I do believe
that the ability to leverage the inherent conflict of interpretation, in
a very positive sense, of an association or theme lies at the very heart
of a design process, both from an individual and a collaborative
process.

--snip--

My attempt at an answer would be that it is the context of practice
that is significant... Or as a question, as regards one or another
context of practice one could ask: "What is actually going on here, how
are those involved doing what they do?"

My further research has led me to understand that much of what one
could consider as being intimately or even solely related to a design
process, for example design thinking, visual thinking, is in fact the
fine tuning of  human capabilities that in this case are brought to bear
in the context of a design process. So it stands to reason that others
can bring these capabilities or one could maybe even call them levels of
perception to bear and fine tune in other processes, other contexts.

--snip--